My $20 "Submariner" is plausible enough to look real to someone who isn't a watch person. The main tell is that the magnification lens and date font is smaller than on a real Rolex. The pearly doodad at 0 on the bezel is also a bit lower than it should be.
When the watch isn't being worn, the other signal that it's fake is that it has a transparent window on the back, which is fun to look at but I guess too gauche for Rolex to do with their real watches.
If you want to use it as a watch instead of a fashion accessory there's a few other downsides. Compared to a real Rolex the self winding is drastically worse, it'll stop ticking pretty quickly if you don't move it. Changing the date with the crown is also kinda janky and it probably wouldn't last 5 minutes if I tried to use it as an actual dive watch.
“ plausible enough to look real to someone who isn't a watch person”
Most non-watch people aren’t looking or noticing one’s watch enough to form an impression of it. The only way I’d identify a watch as possibly being a Rolex is if someone went out of their way to show it said ‘Rolex’ although then I’d assume it was fake due to the effort they’d just spent making me notice.
If the goal is to impress people, it’s not going to have an effect unless they’re a watch person or watch adjacent person.
Watches should be worn for personal enjoyment, not to impress those who change their opinion of others based on whether they have a Rolex or not.
Really good ones are somewhere between $300 to $500 depending on the model and the factories that made them. Also depends on how much the middle person skins off the top.
What's the minimum spend for a decent ChiRolex, one that would look real (or at least not obviously phoney) from six feet away or so?